Orphea Proud (12 page)

First
I met Lola. Then I met Ray. Lola is Ray’s mom and my aunts’ only winter customer. It’s easy for her to come to Proud Store, because she lives across the road. The Grimeses and the Prouds have been neighbors forever. Only Lola isn’t actually a Grimes, she just married one, a man named Jerome who got it into his head that he could have a career as a stand-up comic. Tough profession, I hear. Anyway, Ray doesn’t talk about Jerome. But until he met me, Lola was his whole world. Or to put it more precisely, Ray was Lola’s whole world. She let him do whatever he wanted.

A few days before Lola came swinging into the
store and introduced herself to me, I saw this boy running around across the road. I was making my bed up in the loft, trying to keep from bumping my head on the attic ceiling.

“Shit!”

“What’s that?” Aunt Cleo called up.

“Sugar! I did it again!”

“Are you sure you don’t want the spare room down here?”

“Nope, I’m fine.”

I tucked in the quilt and looked out the window. The fields and mountains were covered with a sugar frosting of fresh snow. That’s when I saw him. An apparition in a short brown coat, his hair the color of thatch, his black boots striding. I’d seen the mobile home across the way, but I assumed nobody lived there. This boy had come out of nowhere. In fact, he looked as if he’d walked out of the ground. I leaned across the bed and pressed my nose to the glass. At that instant, he looked up, first squinting into the sun, and then slightly lowering his gaze to rest on me. I ducked my head, and then bobbed back up to peek. As if he hadn’t seen me (and I was sure he had!), he took off in a run down the field.

I scrunched up on my knees to get a better view. Where was he going? Was he running down to the valley? No … he was circling back. Running in circles, that’s what he was doing! Actually, he wasn’t running—he was galloping, making crazy patterns in the snow. He was slapping his side, arching his back, and
tossing his head. It was quite a show. A horse show! The boy across the road was playing at being a horse! Weird … he looked a little old for that. I sat there watching for a long time. He seemed to never get tired. Every time he passed my way, he glanced up. An odd way of saying hello, don’t you think? Obviously in need of attention, this long-legged, brown-coated boy with the shock of pale hair in his face. When he turned his back and finally galloped away, I felt exhausted.

“What are you doing up there, Orphea?” That was Aunt Minnie’s voice.

“Oh, nothing.”

“These shelves down here need dusting.”

I hurried downstairs. The few grocery items in stock were neatly piled on the floor.

“Three tunas, two potted meats,” Aunt Minnie called out.

Aunt Cleo wrote it down.

“Get a wet soapy rag,” Aunt Minnie instructed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Inventory,” said Aunt Cleo. “We have to know what to order.”

How about everything? I thought. Suppose a customer did come in? Unless they liked tuna and potted meat and needed a couple of rolls of toilet paper or had a thing for stale cupcakes, there’d be nothing to buy; except maybe some soda “pop” as my aunts called it—there seemed to be oodles of that.

“Two boxes of macaroni,” Aunt Minnie announced
with a grunt. I hadn’t noticed that, I guess. “The elbow kind.”

Aunt Cleo sighed. “We’re almost completely out of paper supplies. When you set the table, Orphea, be sparing with the napkins.”

“Don’t fret, Sister,” said Aunt Minnie. “Your boyfriend will be here soon enough.”

My mouth dropped open. “Boyfriend?”

Aunt Cleo giggled. “Minnie’s just foolin’. We’ve got a cute delivery guy. Wears his hair in those little pigtails.”

“You mean dreads?”

“Pigtails,” Aunt Minnie grouched. She didn’t like being corrected. “Gray pigtails all over his head. Good-looking guy, the straw man.”

“That’s what we call him,” Aunt Cleo explained. “Straw man, because he delivers the straws.”

I wrung out my rag. “All finished. Should I put the stuff back on?”

“That’s my job,” said Aunt Minnie, arranging the macaroni boxes.

“Don’t you think you should order before spring comes? Just in case a customer drops by?”

“We know what we’re doing, Miss Orphea, thank you so much.”

Right on cue, the bell on the door tinkled. I gave her a look. “Well, here’s a customer.”

Aunt Cleo smiled. “Shucks, that’s just our Lola.”

“Lola?”

“From across the road.”

Lola Grimes has the reddest hair I’ve ever seen come out of a bottle. She’s also a smoker. An unlit cigarette was clenched between her teeth and her hair was in rollers. She practically walked through me, heading for the soda fountain.

“Hey there, Miss Cleo, hey there, Miss Minnie—y’all got a match over here, I’m certain. Ray’s gone and took all my matches again. I told him a trillion times to use a flashlight, even got him one of them battery-run lanterns. But the boy is stubborn. First and last, he’s going to set the whole mountain on fire. Likes to paint by candlelight. But that’s my boy.”

The way my aunts sprang into action, you would have thought the queen of England had asked for a match.

“Well, yes indeed, Lola.” Aunt Cleo put on her sweetest voice. “I’ll fetch you a whole box, if you like.” Her head nearly disappeared as she scooted behind the fountain.

“Can I get you some tea?” Aunt Minnie asked the redhead. “Got some water on the stove.”

“I’m off tea,” she announced. “Makes me jumpy. But I’ll take me some coffee.”

“Got a pot of that right here,” Aunt Cleo sang out.

“Go bring Mrs. Grimes a cup of coffee, Orphea,” Aunt Minnie prodded. “Your aunt Cleo is right by the pot. She’ll pour it for you.”

I did as I was told, also setting some sugar, cream, and a spoon in front of her.

“I thank ye, thank ye,” Lola said with a nod.

Thank ye, thank ye? What country was she from?

Aunt Cleo took a deep breath.

“Well, now for the introductions—Mrs. Lola Grimes from across the road, meet our great-niece Orphea Proud come from Pennsylvania. Taking time out from school.”

“Hello, Ms. Grimes.”

“Call me Lola.” She gave me the once-over. “What happened to your hair?”

“I got a short haircut. It’s still growing out.”

She poured some sugar into her coffee. “Never get a boyfriend with a buzz cut.”

I looked at the floor. Already I didn’t like her.

“So, what happened? Did you drop out?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you drop out of school?”

“Not forever. I had trouble with math.”

“I hear you. Got a boy across the road who can’t read a lick.” She picked up her coffee. She slurped! Maybe she wasn’t that bad.

“The reason Raynor can’t read is because you keep him at home,” said Aunt Cleo. She pursed her lips. I’d never seen her look testy.

“My business,” said Lola.

Aunt Minnie lifted an eyebrow. “Good neighbors make good fences, Cleo.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” I added quietly. All three of them gave me a look.

“I saw a boy outside this morning. Was that your son?” I asked Lola.

“Only boy around here.”

“I saw him exercising.”

Aunt Minnie spit some tobacco juice into her coffee can. “Acting like a horse, you mean.”

“Kind of …”

Aunt Cleo tugged my elbow. “Horse complex!” she said in a loud whisper. Lola pretended not to hear.

“Hear me?” Aunt Cleo whispered again. “Horse complex!”

Lola slammed down her cup. “I thought we’d been over all that.”

“We have,” Aunt Cleo said quickly. “Ray is your son and you know what’s best for him.”

“He’s a talented boy,” said Lola. “He ain’t in school, but he keeps busy.”

“In a root cellar,” Aunt Minnie added.

“What does your son do?” I asked curiously. “Besides galloping?”

“He’s a painter.”

“House painter,” chimed in Aunt Minnie. “When the weather cooperates.”

“He paints more than houses,” said Lola. “You just have no idea, but someday you will. The whole world will know the name of Raynor Grimes.”

She put a quarter on the table and picked up the matches.

Aunt Cleo shoved the quarter back. “You don’t have to pay, Lola, you know that … for a teeny little cup of coffee.”

Lola stood up. “It’s for the matches. See y’all later.”

“Still working the night shift?” Aunt Minnie called after her.

“Long as I can get my car back up the hill,” she answered. The bell tinkled and the door slammed.

“She’s a barrel of laughs.”

“Grimes,” said Aunt Minnie.

“Yes, I heard. Does she work in town?”

“Chair factory. Glues legs on.”

“Lola loves it,” Aunt Cleo added.

“So, her son, Ray, really doesn’t go to school?”

“Not since he was kicked in the head.” Aunt Cleo sighed.

“Kicked in the head?”

“Yep.”

“And he’s really a painter?”

Aunt Minnie shrugged. “He was supposed to have done our house last summer, but it rained too much and then he got stung by a bee and Lola wanted him to paint that barn she has over there, and one thing led to—”

“I’m talking about painting. Real painting.”

“Painting a house is real.”

“Painting on a canvas or a piece of paper. Does Ray paint like that?”

“Lola claims he does,” said Aunt Cleo.

“The only thing I know about Raynor Grimes is that he likes root beer and cupcakes,” said Aunt Minnie. “Orders them every time he comes over here. Doesn’t come over much anymore, though. But he loved to run across the road when he was a tyke. ‘Tan I have a toot-beer and a tup-take, please?’ ”

Aunt Cleo laughed. “Had himself a little lisp. That Raynor Grimes was the cutest. So skinny; don’t know where he put all those cupcakes, though.”

I eyed the cupcakes on the shelf. “Those look a little stale.”

“He’s a good boy,” said Aunt Minnie. “No matter how funny he acts.”

“He’s also your cousin,” Aunt Cleo announced.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. We got Grimes blood. It’s right on my story quilt.” She pointed to a square with three black bars.

“No need to get into all that now, Cleo,” Aunt Minnie growled.

“Why not?” I asked.

“There are some things I just don’t like to talk about. That’s why.”

I sure understood that. “But what about this cousin deal? That boy I saw galloping looks white to me.”

“Grimeses are white,” said Aunt Minnie. “But the Prouds have got Grimes blood. Since all the Grimeses in Handsome Crossing are kin, that means that Ray is your cousin. That’s one reason we take such an interest in him. Never know who might be in your family. Ain’t it the truth?”

I thought of Rupert. Ain’t it, though.

Poetry

I hadn’t written since Lissa died. Not that I hadn’t thought about it. I’d brought my journal with me. I still owed twenty poems to Icky and Marilyn. Luckily, I hadn’t spent the two hundred dollars. But the part of me that wrote poetry had turned into a desert.

“P” is also for painting.

Lissa was a painter, and so was my new cousin Raynor Grimes.

But Ray was also a boy with a horse complex. That’s what Aunt Cleo had said, and that’s sure the way he acted. Every morning I saw him from my window,
galloping. What a ham! He circled and pranced, even had the nerve to jump a fence. Then he looked up at me for a minute and darted away, as if he was daring me to come after him. So, I did. The problem was once I crossed the road, I couldn’t find him. I knocked at the door of the mobile home. Lola answered, half asleep. She slept most of the morning, since she worked the night shift.